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Perceptions are no imprints, we have said, are not to be
thought of as seal-impressions on soul or mind: accepting this
statement, there is one theory of memory which must be definitely
rejected.
Memory is not to be explained as the retaining of information in
virtue of the lingering of an impression which in fact was never
made; the two things stand or fall together; either an impression
is made upon the mind and lingers when there is remembrance, or,
denying the impression, we cannot hold that memory is its
lingering. Since we reject equally the impression and the
retention we are obliged to seek for another explanation of
perception and memory, one excluding the notions that the
sensible object striking upon soul or mind makes a mark upon it,
and that the retention of this mark is memory.
If we study what occurs in the case of the most vivid form of
perception, we can transfer our results to the other cases, and
so solve our problem.
In any perception we attain by sight, the object is grasped there
where it lies in the direct line of vision; it is there that we
attack it; there, then, the perception is formed; the mind looks
outward; this is ample proof that it has taken and takes no inner
imprint, and does not see in virtue of some mark made upon it
like that of the ring on the wax; it need not look outward at all
if, even as it looked, it already held the image of the object,
seeing by virtue of an impression made upon itself. It includes
with the object the interval, for it tells at what distance the
vision takes place: how could it see as outlying an impression
within itself, separated by no interval from itself? Then, the
point of magnitude: how could the mind, on this hypothesis,
define the external size of the object or perceive that it has
any- the magnitude of the sky, for instance, whose stamped
imprint would be too vast for it to contain? And, most convincing
of all, if to see is to accept imprints of the objects of our
vision, we can never see these objects themselves; we see only
vestiges they leave within us, shadows: the things themselves
would be very different from our vision of them. And, for a
conclusive consideration, we cannot see if the living object is
in contact with the eye, we must look from a certain distance;
this must be more applicable to the mind; supposing the mind to
be stamped with an imprint of the object, it could not grasp as
an object of vision what is stamped upon itself. For vision
demands a duality, of seen and seeing: the seeing agent must be
distinct and act upon an impression outside it, not upon one
occupying the same point with it: sight can deal only with an
object not inset but outlying.
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